Powered up for sound

Thai firm Magnet has come up with a neat power station unit called the ISO Clean 1000 that promises to protect your expensive TVs, projectors and Blu-ray players from those all-too-common power fluctuations.

The power station unit can also clean up noises and frequencies from electric current that may affect your movie viewing and music listening pleasure.

Formed by three Thai engineers in 1985, Magnet has now it has grown into a firm that designs and manufactures different types of electronic equipment, including power amplifiers, preamplifiers and power station units. It exports several of its amplifiers and power station units to both Europe and America and has won several awards for the equipment.

Magnet has also been hired by two foreign firms to make their brands of power station units.

The ISO name of the product stands for “isolated” because the ISO Clean 1000 unit uses a special toroidal transfer with two isolated coils of electric wires for input and output of electric current.

The isolated transformer ensures clean electricity without the interference that affects picture and sound quality when sensitive equipment like a projector, an LED TV or a Blu-ray disc player is used.

The ISO Clean 1000 has a beautiful design and a strong build. It comes in black or white and looks just like a power amplifier.

There are three buttons at the front, one for turning the unit on and off and the other two for the menus and the controlling timer of four sockets, as well as dimming the LED display.

The LED display reports the current status of input A/C power. Seven LED lights display the status of the power station, informing you if the station has been properly grounded and whether the electricity is under or over the normal 220 volts. If your home power system is grounded properly to prevent short circuits, the LED light at the “Ground” label will be turned on.

To prevent your expensive projector or LCD TV or home theatre receiver from being damaged by fluctuating electric current, the ISO Clean 1000 will shut itself down if the electric current increases too high or drops too low.

The ISO Clean 1000 has three sections of power output – isolated output, high power filtered output and high power non-filtered output.

The isolated output is the star of the power station. This section uses the isolated transformer for the best audio and picture quality. It provides four sockets – two universal and two Panasonic sockets.

While the sockets are pre-labelled with the types of equipment that should be plugged into them, it’s not essential to follow the labels. They’re for use with a Plasma or LCD TV, or a projector, and a pre-amplifier or a CD or Blu-ray disc player or a satellite TV receiver.

This isolate output section supports up to a total of 1,000 watts power consumption.

If you live in areas where power cables interfere with listening to music, plug your power amplifier or an A/V receiver to the high power filtered output. Two universal sockets are provided here.

The ISO Clean 1000 uses an electronic circuit to filter noises and interfering frequencies from this section. The high power filtered output supports 2,000 watts power consumption.

The non-filtered high power output provides four sockets – two universal and two Panasonic ones. You can plug your amplifier or A/V receiver here if you live in an area where there is not much radio or other signal interference in the electric current. The non-filtered high power output supports power consumption of up to 2,000 watts.

You can connect four devices to the Panasonic sockets of this output section and the high power filtered output to use the timer function of the ISO Clean 1000. You must use the red sockets labelled with High Power I and High Power II of filtered and non-filtered outputs respectively.

I tested the power station by connecting my InFocus SP8604 Home Theatre Projector and a True Visions satellite HD Plus receiver to the isolated output. I found the picture quality was pleasing – clean and sharp. The blackness seemed very deep.

When I connected my Denon home theatre receiver to the high power filtered output, the sound seemed softer and I needed to turn up the volume up but the audio quality was good with compared to when I connected the Denon receiver to the high power non-filtered output.

ISO Clean 1000 retails for Bt20,980 and is available from Magnet. Visit www.Magnet.co.th.

 

        Key specs

Configuration: Passive AC Power line cleaner

Isolated Transformer Type: Double shielded Low Impedance Toroidal Transformer

Filter Mode: Both common and differential mode

Noise attenuation: -89 db @ 100 kHz Max.

Attenuation frequency: -40 dB @ 21 kHz

High power output loaded: Total 2000 VA Max

Isolation output loaded: Total 1000 VA Max

Leakage current: Less than 0.1mA @ 250V

Direct current resistance: Less than 0.05 Ohm